02 Unicorn Rider (8 page)

Nimbus had not really wanted the mirror, it was too grand and expensive compared to his other meagre possessions and it looked a bit stupid towering over his bed; but as he thought it would have been rude to refuse a gift, he was lumbered with it.

Now, as he looked at his reflection and listened to his parents arguing, wondering how much his father was still keeping from him and how many lies he was still being told, he could not help feeling he was as out of place here as the mirror was.

His parents’ voices were getting louder as their argument got worse. It seemed like they were shouting so much the whole village would hear.

‘If you can’t help Glass,’ his mother said, angrily, ‘then find someone who can.’

‘There isn’t anybody,’ his father snapped. ‘You know there isn’t. None of the old magic users remain, none of the old magic books exist any longer. I watched them all being burned after the war. She doesn’t even have a familiar to guide her. She is totally beyond help.’

‘Then that’s it? You’ve decided she’s beyond help, so you won’t even try? Is this how you resolved all such matters when you were one of the great Wing Warriors?’

The door to Nimbus’s bedroom creaked open. A small, sleepy shadow shuffled inside. ‘They’re fighting again,’ the shadow said.

‘I know, Glass,’ Nimbus said. ‘Come and sit with me on the bed. We’ll talk and pretend like it’s the old days again, before all the magic came back.’

Glass sat next to him. Her feet dangled off the edge of the bed. She was so tiny. ‘Aren’t we getting too old to be playing pretend?’

‘We’ll never be too old for that,’ Nimbus said. He gave her a hug, noticing with alarm how he could feel the flow of the terrible magic powers bubbling volcanically just beneath her skin.

Glass noticed his shock, and smiled sweetly in the dark. ‘It’s not so bad,’ she said.

‘Does it... hurt?’

‘I’m starting to get used to it. But sometimes it gets out and then I can’t stop it.’

‘Like today?’

‘I didn’t mean to burn those creatures. I only meant to start a fire to scare them away, but there was just too much of it, and I couldn’t stop it spreading. Nobody was supposed to get hurt.’

‘You saved me. You’re my hero.’

‘Sometimes I close my eyes and then... I feel like if I open them again all the energy will get out and tear everything apart. Other times...’ She looked at her open palm. Her veins glowed faintly.

‘What?’

‘Other times it feels like if I don’t open my eyes, the energy will tear me apart instead.’

Nimbus ruffled her hair. ‘I’m going to help,’ he said. ‘Dad thinks all the magic books have been destroyed, but there must be some somewhere. I’ll find one. I’ll find you a dozen, a whole library full of books that will tell you how to control this thing.’

‘Really?’

‘I promise. I’m going to do everything I can. But you’re going to have to help me too. I have a job to do as the Wing Warrior and I can’t always be around for you. I need to know you’re going to be safe.’ He paused thoughtfully before he went on. ‘I want you to stay with Sky and Tidal.’

‘Are you joking? Tidal’s a jerk. He called me a witch.’

‘Tidal’s a little bit of a jerk, that’s true, but he’s also very strong. He’ll be able to protect you when I’m not here.’

‘I can protect myself.’

‘I know. I’d just feel better if you were with Sky and Tidal. We were a team once, and nothing could hurt us when we were together. I’d like to think that was still true.’ He paused again, so that the only sound was their breathing in the darkness.

Glass touched his hand. ‘You don’t have to worry, Sky likes you the most.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean. I’ll stay with them though, if you want me to keep an eye on them.’

‘Hey, I never said that.’

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Nimbus caught a stray shard of moonlight reflected in the mirror. The illumination formed an unusual shape on the surface of the glass; a shape that was at once familiar and yet unlike anything he had ever seen before. Glass had obviously seen it too, because she gasped excitedly and gripped his fingers. Then the moonbeam and the reflection were gone, leaving the room once again in darkness.

‘Did you see that?’ Nimbus asked. ‘That was weird. It looked like the reflection was alive.’

Glass moved to the mirror, and ran her fingertips over the glass. ‘It was,’ she said.

‘It was just a reflection.’

‘No. It was a message. Something wanted to let us know it was out there. It sent a message travelling along the moonbeams.’

‘That’s silly.’

‘Lots of things are silly, doesn’t mean they’re not true though. Think about it. No matter where we are in the world, we’re all still under the same moon. If you wanted someone to see a message, what better place is there to put it?’

Nimbus scratched his head. As crazy as it sounded, it actually made sense. But who would have the power to throw a message into the sky, and why would they want to?

‘It was pretty,’ Glass said, dreamily.

‘But what did it mean?’

‘It meant...’ Glass staggered slightly, as though something heavy had just been thrown over her shoulders. ‘It meant...’ Her eyes rolled up into her head, and her body convulsed. ‘Help me,’ she gasped.

‘Dad!’ Nimbus screamed, as Glass fell unconscious into his arms. ‘Dad, come quick!’

For what seemed like an eternity, Nimbus held the motionless body of his little sister. His heart thumped painfully, and the night pressed close. Not for the first time, he was almost completely overwhelmed by how little he really knew about this strange new world, and he knew how empty and worthless his promises to Glass had been.

He couldn’t protect her. Perhaps nobody could.

‘Here, let me take her,’ his father said, coming into the room.

He put her on the bed as Nimbus’s mother watched from the open doorway. Her expression was dark and brooding.

‘What happened?’ she asked.

‘There was something. In the mirror,’ Nimbus explained. ‘Glass said it was a message.’

‘What kind of message?’ his father asked, frowning as he felt Glass’s forehead.

‘There was something in the moonlight. It reflected in the glass in the shape of a horse.’

‘What kind of horse?’

‘It was strange. Very white. And it had a single horn coming out of its head.’

‘That was no horse. That was a unicorn.’

Glass groaned weakly. Sweat sprang up on her pale cheeks and crackles of energy played around her delicate fingers as she gripped at the sheets.

‘What’s happening?’ Nimbus said.

‘It’s too much for her. She can’t control it,’ his father said. ‘Strata, fetch cold water and a cloth. We have to keep her temperature down as much as possible.’

Nimbus’s mother left the room without uttering a word. Already she had seen her son struck down by a dragon, only to be brought back to life by powers beyond her understanding. Now her daughter was suffering too. Was her whole family destined to fall apart around her, like beings of smoke breaking against the relentless movements of the fickle wind? And was she destined to watch it happen, a little piece of her dying silently with each new heartache?

‘It’s trying to get out, isn’t it?’ Nimbus asked his father.

‘She doesn’t have the skill to channel the flow of energy through her body. She can’t keep everything balanced. As the power continues to grow, it takes more effort to control.’

‘How do we stop it?’

‘We can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘I think there’s more to this than we thought. Something to do with what you saw in the mirror.’

‘I don’t know what I saw.’

‘But I think I do. Have you ever heard of familiars? Magic wells?’

‘You mean like black cats and frogs?’

‘Something like that. Every magic user has one, even if they don’t know it.’

Glass’s eyes flicked open, and in the gloom they had the unsettling appearance of two suns in pools of darkness. Her mouth worked open and closed and there was a terrible, shrill scream, like the scream of all the hurting people from every corner of the land combined in one terrifying voice. But it wasn’t Glass who was screaming. Although her mouth flapped frantically, she made no sound. The scream was coming from outside.

Nimbus ran to the window. A young girl, wearing only a thin nightgown, was staggering around outside. Her long, straggly hair was hanging down over her face, but it was obvious she was the one making all the noise.

As Nimbus watched, she fell on the damp grass, and her head sank until it was almost touching the ground.

‘What is it?’ Cloud asked. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Could be trouble,’ Nimbus said, snatching up his sword as he headed for the door.

His father put a warning hand on his arm. ‘I wouldn’t go out there if I were you.’

‘But you’re not me,’ Nimbus said, and he shrugged himself out of his father’s grip.

‘At least put your armour back on,’ Cloud shouted, but Nimbus was already at the front door and either didn’t hear what his father had said, or chose to ignore it.

‘Nimbus, don’t,’ his mother said.

He smiled at her. ‘It’s okay, Mum. This is what I do now.’

He snuck outside and then pressed himself against the wall, scanning the sky for signs of circling wyverns. His heart was wedged in his mouth, and he expected at any moment for ugly, winged monsters to come hurtling out of the night towards him, with claws bared and teeth glistening. But there was no such attack, and it quickly became apparent that whatever was going on, it had nothing to do with the villainous creatures that he had fought with earlier that day.

With his sword at the ready, he crept around the side of the house where the screaming was almost unbearably loud, and then he scurried across to crouch beside the shivering girl.

As he had drawn closer to her, his sense of dread had become palpable, a choking fear that gripped his insides and filled his blood with ice. For a second, he even had the urge to go back inside and pretend he had never heard the girl’s cries; but then he remembered his duty, and touched her arm with trembling fingers. Her skin was deathly cold, and a shudder ran through his body as he thought of what she must have seen to make her continue screaming so awfully.

‘What’s wrong?’ he shouted.

The girl looked up at him, and in that moment there was a powerful blast of cold air that whipped her hair away from her face. Then Nimbus was screaming too, scrambling away from her, all thoughts of being a hero forgotten and replaced instead with mind–numbing terror.

The girl stared at him blindly with the hollows where her eyes should have been, seemingly oblivious to the wriggling maggots that were busy nibbling and gnawing away the last few scraps of decaying flesh from her skull.

She made no attempt to grab or attack him. She just continued her own wordless wailing: a screech of despair outside the room where Glass shivered and shook.

CHAPTER EIGHT

After another minute, the death–like girl fell silent, and the absence of her screaming was almost as terrible as the screaming itself. She took one last look at Nimbus, or at least he assumed she did, because it was difficult to tell if she was really looking at anything at all through those wriggling maggots; and then her hair caught in another whirlwind of freezing wind, wrapping around her completely. When the wind died down, there was nothing left of the girl except a wisp of smoke that broke apart and floated away.

Nimbus got to his feet unsteadily, taking deep, calming breaths. The night loomed horribly, and his desire to go inside and sit by the fire was only slightly outweighed by his desire to know what the wailing girl had been trying to tell him.

‘The world’s gone crazy,’ he muttered. ‘Either that, or I have.’

For a moment longer he stood in the motionless gloom, staring at the point in space where the girl had evaporated; and then he turned away from the crowding shadows.

The night watched him silently as he returned to the welcoming glow of the house.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked his father, throwing the Wing Warrior sword on the kitchen table. ‘What was that thing?’

‘A banshee,’ his father said, taking a seat at the table, and motioning for Nimbus to do the same. ‘Did you look at it?’

‘I saw its face. Or, at least, I saw what should have been its face. It had no skin. No lips, no eyes. Nothing. It was just a screaming skull. And maggots.’

‘You heard it screaming?’

‘Of course.’

Cloud turned pale, and he gripped the edge of the kitchen table as though he suddenly had no strength left to stand. ‘How do you feel?’ he asked, with an audible tremble in his voice.

‘How do you think I feel?’

His father paused thoughtfully. He looked like he was deciding whether or not he should tell Nimbus something. ‘You’re lucky to be alive at all,’ he said, eventually. ‘I did try to tell you not to go out there. The banshee is motivated by its one mission, and any unlucky person who happens to get in the way of that mission usually ends up dead.’

‘What mission?’

‘Banshee’s are sad spirits, destined never to rest in their graves until they have passed on a warning to the living.’ Cloud looked at the closed door leading to the bedroom where Glass was still being cared for by Strata. His next words were barely more than a whisper. ‘Banshee’s bring news of a death.’

Nimbus sat down hard. It felt like he had been punched in the stomach. ‘Do you think it was here for Glass?’

‘Perhaps. Her familiar certainly seems to think so.’

‘What familiar?’

‘The one you saw in the mirror.’

‘I told you, I don’t know what I saw in that mirror. It could have been anything. A trick of the light.’

‘It was a familiar. A unicorn.’

‘What makes you think Glass even has a familiar?’

‘Every magic user has a magic well, a creature that comes into existence at the same time the magic user’s powers are awakened. From that moment, the spirits of the magic user and the familiar become one, and the fate of either is shared by both. Do you understand?’